Modern automobiles and other vehicles may include sophisticated on-board computer systems that monitor the status and performance of various components of the vehicle (for example, the vehicle engine, transmission, gears, brakes, suspension, and/or other components of the vehicle). Many of these computer systems may also adjust or control one or more operating parameters of the vehicle in response to operator instructions, road or weather conditions, operating status of the vehicle, and/or other factors.
Various types of microcontroller or microprocessor-based controllers found on many conventional vehicles may include supervisory control modules (SCMs), engine control modules (ECMs), controllers for various vehicle components (for example, anti-lock brakes, electronically-controlled transmissions, or other components), among other modules. Such controllers are typically implemented with any one of numerous types of microprocessors, microcontrollers or other control devices that appropriately receive data from one or more sensors or other sources, process the data to create suitable output signals, and provide the output signals to control actuators, dashboard indicators and/or other data responders as appropriate. The various components of a vehicle-based control system typically inter-communicate with each other and/or with sensors, actuators and the like across any one of numerous types of serial and/or parallel data links. Today, data processing components within a vehicle are commonly interlinked by a data communications network such as a control area network (CAN), an example of which is described in ISO Standard 11898-1 (2003).
Because vehicles may now process relatively large amounts of digital data during operation, it can be an engineering challenge to ensure that the data processed is accurate and reliable. Though unlikely, it is postulated that as digital data is stored, processed, consumed and/or shared between or within the various data processing components of a vehicle, for example, bit errors and the like can occur due, for example, to environmental factors, hardware faults, data transmission issues and other postulated causes. As a result, various techniques have been developed to ensure the integrity of data processed and transferred within the vehicle.
Nevertheless, it remains desirable to formulate systems and methods for ensuring data accuracy within vehicle control systems, and/or for minimizing any adverse effects from any potential data errors. Other desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.